Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Barrowmaze II

You know you're in for something exciting when you get an email from Greg "Barrowmaze" Gillespie  that begins "Here's an interesting idea"

I did 4 or 5 illustrations for Barrowmaze 1, which by all accounts were well received, and Barrowmaze seems to have gone down well with reviewers. As well it should it is great, its exactly the kind of undead laden dungeon-crawl that D&D is made for. Greg has kindly commissioned me for several more for Barrowmaze II (so far I've turned in 3 small monster illos, and have several others in the pipeline).

Anyway, Greg has gone the crowd-funding route, and is at just over 50% of the target.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Barrowmaze

So go, have a look, maybe pre-order if you like what you see. Supporting projects through crowd-funding looks like the future of niche product development where there is a core, identifiable and reachable audience - and in our case that means gaming. It's becoming more and more mainstream for gaming projects to work this way, (steve jacksons OGRE -designers edition, for example). Are we looking at the reinvention of late, western capitalism? maybe. Look at is as pre-ordering, and helping the project along.

Of course, this is partially self-serving, but Greg is also commissioning art from: Stefan Poag  Trevor Hammond, Scott LeMien, Alexander Cook, Stephan Thompson,  Cory Hamel and Jim Holloway
(anyone got links for Alex and Steph?).

And seeing as Greg has let the dice out of the bag, here's the neat idea:

Custom Barrowmaze Dice | icons by Zhu
Yeah! Custom barrowmaze dice! I drew up some icons - the Suicide King Wraith and the Broken Helmed Skull which replace the 6-spot. these will be strictly limited, and they'll be going into production as 'perks' for the $65 Crypt Knight package.

Right! that's enough. I'm serious about this whole hiatus thing...

Monday, 16 April 2012

Your Blog is An 80's Zine



This is totally Coops fault. (if he hadn't sneaked into my brain and stole the idea when I wasn't looking). His memefesto (slightly altered):

Your last 5 blogposts are the contents of a  zine you wrote single-handedly in the 1980s, photocopied on the local library photocopier or via indulgence of an office-working parent and sold on to around a dozen people at a loss. This zine has the same title as your blog. Invent an issue number and cover price.

From somewhere rip off a suitable black and white illo (you want colour? print the cover on coloured paper you damned show-off) and fake up a cover page for this zine referring to contents inside. Bonus points for using period typewriter fonts and artistic filters to degrade the quality. Obviously if you have access to a photocopier and scanner you can start playing with distressing the paper and doing a proper illegible photocopy reproduction rather than faking it as I did. Then post on your blog for all to see, and link back to the blog you first heard about this on.


The logo lettering was copied off Rodney Matthews Elric book.
The photo is some fashion designer I can't remember the name of right now, but I'll be writing about CHAOS AMAZONS at some point.


Now, back to hiatusing...

Saturday, 31 March 2012

Blogging hiatus

Due to recent happy events I'll not be posting much over coming weeks.  Here's a quick breakdown of what has been happening at Zhu Towers:

Barrowmaze II
Gregs dungeon gets deeper and needs moar skullz! Drawing lots of pieces of weird and wonderous loot. Don't forget Barrowmaze I is now available in print and pdf www.barrowmaze.com

Red Box Games
Alternative Middle Ages, decoration, artwork and illustration  www.red-box-games.com

Otherworld
Now shipping with card art drawn by Zhuvian art-slaves! (well, that's me actually)  otherworldminiatures.co.uk

Chaotic Henchmen Productions
A few illustrations from the Mighty Pen of Zhu, featuring Grimlocks,  zombie-snake-elf creature,  apocalypses and giant monkey statues in Many Gates of the Gann AD&D module www.chaotichenchmen.com

Zhu on the left of me, poag on the right


"The City"
An urban AD&D campaign setting, in writing (currently expanding new spells) / editing / illustration works / layout / publishing. Selection of current reference materials on me worktop:
  •  
Bearoak
My home-grown folkloric Ænglisc AD&D Campaign setting, in development, plot flowcharts, monsters, characters, npcs, locations, etc.

I'm Z!
Honoured to take part in  Stuart Lloyds April A-Z blog challenge... he has got some great interviews lined up with Gamebook fans and seasoned pros including:  Russ Nicholson, Michael "DestinyQuest" Ward,  Coopdevil, and me! 

Oldhammer
The saga continues...
  • 90% of a post on armour and PVs finished
  • Deconstructing 2e Scenarios
Also like to say a big thanks to everyone who is getting on board with the concept - even just finding Oldhammer a useful hook to hang their gaming style on, its all good!

Project Mayhem
Top secret  sideways expansion of the Oldhammer concept (lots to do) :-)

Random Nerdness


Loungetronica cover of Hawkwinds Spirit of the Age by Hausfrauen Experiment
SYNTAX ERROR ON LINE 10
NOW I'LL NEVER KNOW WHO STOLE MY SELDGE


Cheers!

Hey 100+ followers  joined the Kult of Zhu! With 86,409 pageviews to date

Also a sincere thanks to everyone commissioning me and well, apologies for the inevitable delay to projects...